1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method and a system for performing accounting functions in a wireless Internet access network using Internet web technology.
2. Description of the Related Art
As disclosed in application Ser. No. 09/432,824 of Nov. 2, 1999 entitled CELLULAR WIRE INTERNET ACCESS SYSTEM USING SPREAD SPECTRUM AND INTERNET PROTOCOL (IP), this describes a cellular wireless Internet access system which operates in the 2 gigahertz or other frequency bands to provide high data rates to fixed and portable wireless Internet devices. Such users connect to near-by base stations which in turn communicate to Integrated Network Controllers which are then connected to the Internet. Such wireless implementation relates to an access network of the UMTS (Universal Mobile Telephone Service) type and its subset UTRAN (Universal Terrestrial Radio Access Network) standards. UMTS/UTRAN standards are published by the 3G Project Partnership (3GPP), www.3gpp.org.
In any telecommunication access system, be it wired or wireless, there must be some type of centralized accounting for recording customer's usage and for billing purposes. Where the access to the Internet is via the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN), a RADIUS system supports such accounting function. A description of RADIUS is provided by an article, RFC2138 Remote Authentication Dial-In User Service (RADIUS) by C. Rigney, et al., April 1997, which is available at the website www.ietf.org. Thus far, this system, however, has only been used for a Public Switched Telephone Network access.
Traditional mobile communications technology generating accounting information for Internet service may not satisfactorily support all aspects of the wireless access system describe in the above co-pending application Ser. No. 09/432,824.
There is therefore a need for allowing performance of accounting functions in a wireless access system in which the above disadvantages may be alleviated.